Two Blue Lines
by Shiggity Shwa
Summary: A glance at Vala being pregnant during three separate situations in her life. Each chapter AU from each other. 3 of 8 in La Troisème Fois series. Vala/Cam, Vala/Tomin, Vala/Daniel. Post AOT. 3 of 8 in a series.
1. Brambles

_A/N: Just a friendly reminder that each chapter is a different timeline and don't really pertain to each other beside carrying on motifs and such._

Two Blue Lines

Chapter 1

Brambles

1.

It is bad timing. That's all it is.

It's been a bad day. They destroyed their mission. Instead of a simple artifact extraction, they ended up upsetting an entire world of unruly natives, who quickly graduated from angry fist shaking to chucking barbarous balls at them. Thorny brambles the size of golf balls that looked to be made of metal and plant material. Sap stuck them to their skin and as they ran for the stargate the friction caused the little spineys to embed in their skin like cacti. Dr. Lam spent the better part of an hour pulling them out of Muscles, who heroically took the brunt but came through the gate looking like a porcupine.

"Your temperature's a bit high." Dr. Lam retrieves the thermometer from her mouth and double checks the numbers, shaking the device not happy with the results.

"My kind tend to run a bit hot sometimes." A flat out lie of course. A better excuse would have been that they were just running for their lives from bramble hurling hooligans, but her brain hasn't been in the best working order lately.

"Really." The doctor is not impressed, but she doesn't call her bluff. Simply hands the thermometer to the nurse who disinfects it, then adds with slight irritation, "it's never happened before."

"Perhaps the mission just exacerbated my temperature." Swings her jacket on from where it lays over the back of a chair, and now the good doctor's starting to become suspicious.

She sets her clipboard on the seat of the chair and squints her eyes as if she has x-ray vision to discern the problem, she doesn't have x-ray vision, does she? "Something you'd like to tell me, Vala?"

"What?" Zips up the jacket below her breasts and her issued black top a bit crusty with bramble blood.

"Anything you'd like to discuss confidentially?"

"Not particularly." Pulls out one of her pigtails remembering far too late that there are brambles latching on and tangled in her hair. One cuts at the pad of her finger and she quickly stifles the blood in mouth.

"Want a bandage for that?" Dr. Lam calls after her as she strides towards the door hoping to get out of the white room where she awakens far too often.

"It's fine."

"Of course it is." The doctor snatches her file from the chair and makes a mark while mumbling, "why do I even bother with these guys."

She has to catch him before he ducks out for the night. He has a date with a girl he's been seeing for the last month, she thinks her name is Annie or Abby. From what he's told her she's a very nice country girl who likes horses and haystacks and she thinks there's an innuendo in that sentence, but she's searched forever and cannot find it.

Knows about him and his innuendos now because ever since their collision at, and after, the bar a few months ago it has become a regular occurrence. Not like they mark it on calendars, but they have code words, facial ticks to let each other know if they need the company. If he can sign her out for 'driving' classes which sometime end in the backseat of his jeep and sometimes end the next morning because he makes it hard for her to leave. Not that she wants to leave, just he's snuggly and warm and it's a nice change from being stuck in her cold dorm. She's almost got him to the point where he might give Cupcake Battles a watch, but he always pulls her back from sitting on the end bed and his fingers and mouth are very persuasive.

The sex, the intimate interactions have slowed down a bit with the addition of Andie or Addie in his life. He's starting to become a little serious with her and the gentleman that he is, he took the time to explain how their accommodations had changed and she understood immediately. They haven't had sex in two weeks, but their professional relationship hasn't lacked in any way and if anything, they're closer friends than they were before. They've garnered each other's trust and she's more thankful to have him as a friend then a partner.

But it was too easy, and she knew it was too easy at the time, that the other sock had to drop. So she waited and nothing happened. They went on missions and laughed as a team and played basketball. Sam wrote computer code and Daniel wrote the tragedies of ancient artifacts. Muscles hefted her up to reach into a tree to retrieve an apple and she was pelted in the back of the head with the first bramble. That really wasn't the problem. The temperature raise was the problem. The voracious hunger that required her to need the apple was the problem. The sex sometime in the last three months was the problem.

"Cameron." Beckons him from the door of his office. He has his overnight bag ready, remembers him vaguely saying something about taking Amy or Allie to a swanky hotel and the only thing she was jealous of was the idea of Cupcake Battles on a big screen tv.

"Hey Princess." Doesn't glance up from where he's double checking mission reports, making sure all the fine details are in order, probably not concerning how his pants got caught on a rather unruly thorn bush and how he almost lost them for the third time. "What's up."

"I need to talk to you."

His lips pull into one of indecision, not a smile or frown just a moot face. "I'm on my way out, can this wait until Monday?"

And normally she'd let him have his marvelous weekend and wait to burst his bubble, bad choice of words, on Monday, but this is the third time something like this has come up and she simply can't leave it any longer or he'll know when they all know. "It's very important and it will be very brief."

It's enough. He nods satisfied with her half-plea trusting her wager and holding the door open for her to scoot into his office. When she slips passed him his adept fingers tug a bramble painlessly from her mess of hair. "Got some souvenirs."

"More than you know." This isn't how she envisioned it, none of it is. Thought he'd be sitting down because he's the type that might faint. Daniel would faint.

"What do you mean?"

He shuts the door behind him and she's dives head first as she always has, yanks the bandy off clean and proper. "I'm pregnant."

The color drains from his face for a moment and his eyes blink and she knows he can't see anything because she couldn't, not after she found out from a helpful little test that turned blue and ruined her life a bit. "You're—I'm sorry did you say pregnant?"

"I did."

"It's mine for sure?" Not meant to be scandalous or serpent-tongued, just a natural question as they've both been seeing other people in the last months.

"I've been with other men, but not enough to get pregnant."

"Oh. Oh yeah. Okay." He keeps nodding and she thinks that his head might actually unhinge from his neck.

"Would you like to sit down?'

"No. No. I think I need to keep standing." His eyes stare into the corner of the room and when she traces his sightline she finds he's staring at the American flag. Is this a military thing or a Mitchell thing? His voice cracks at this next question. "Are you keeping it?"

"I—um—I hadn't thought that far ahead actually." Turns away from him even thought she knows he's not looking directly at her. "I thought you deserved the right to know first."

"I—uh—I appreciate that." Something snaps within him; his eyes unhook from the flag and seek her out. "Jeez, what am I even thinking. How are you feeling?"

"I'm alright." And with that their relationship rebalances. He starts plucking out more brambles from her hair and setting them on his desk. The gentle tug giving her small shivers. "Dr. Lam said my temperature is a tad high."

Then his large hand covers her dirt smudged forehead, and he waits as if he'll be able to tell her temperature to a fifth of a degree. "Not that high, Cameron."

"I know—I just—why didn't you say anything, you could have been hurt."

"Now, now, don't start with that talk." Wiggles her eyebrows underneath his hand until he removes it.

"You're right. You're rig—I just want you to be healthy and safe."

"But you've always wanted that."

"Yeah but now I kind of want it more."

Now he flat out stares at her and she can see the stars forming in behind his eyes. She hasn't decided on whether to keep the baby or not, probably told him about it so his reaction would sway her, and now that it's overly positive she's a bit disappointed because choosing to abort the baby is going to be markedly harder now. "Don't you have a date, Darling?"

"I'll cancel it." Answers almost before her sentence is finished, then blinks and realizes his intensity, knows he'll scare her off. "If you want to talk, I'll cancel it."

"It's nothing that can't wait for a little later." When he doesn't seem satiated by her answer she adds, "I still fit into all my clothes, we have plenty of time."

"Alright." The nods are back, and he slings his overnight bag over his arm. There are eight brambles on the corner of his desk. "Alright." He places a hand on the small of her back directing her to the door and his temperature is higher than hers. "Alright."

"Something else on your mind?" Pauses at the door before he opens it for her, ever a gentleman, and fixes the collar of his dress shirt and suit jacket so they fit together.

"Just—I want to say—but I don't want it to come off as cliché or—"

"Darling, it's me." Presses down on the shoulder of his jacket to iron out any wrinkles she made. "I'm not easily offended, say what you mean."

Her smile encourages him, and he nods a final time. "I just want you to know that I'm here—for—for whatever you need, and I feel like shit that this happened."

"It's no one's fault." She nods and feels oddly emotional while he picks a final bramble from her hair. "Just bad timing."


	2. Burning Bread

Two Blue Lines

Chapter 2

Burning Bread

2.

It is the perfect ploy. That's all it is.

She's been aware of it for a little over a month now, which would probably put her due date about six weeks ahead of schedule. Would he fall for a premature baby being the perfect weight and healthy? Who is she kidding, he'll thank the Ori and call the child a blessing. If the baby is born with eight extra fingers from being possibly conceived by a supergate deity, he'll say it's blessing from the Ori because now their child can hold two swords. Her child will not fight for the Ori.

The dough before her is almost hard because she over kneaded it from being too preoccupied, formulating how to tell him, how she knows after hardly a month of marriage. Maybe she, her people, are more in tune with their bodies than those of Ver Isca. Maybe she knew the moment it happened on their first time on their wedding night because she has not been married four times before and this is her first pregnancy. She's a pious woman.

Returns to slapping the dough and trying to shape a horrible log of bread which might as well be a log of wood from the forests outside the city walls. It probably won't matter to him, he'll be so enthralled with the shiny new idea of fatherhood she could be six months along and he would agree it's his. Why else would he carry a woman he watched fall from the sky back to his house. Everything reverts to his religion and this quick conception is the Ori making up for mucking up most ever other aspect of his life. She's the reward for being a true believer and if she's said it once, she'll say it again, she hates being a reward.

Scores the bread on top and slides it onto a grill in the hearth to cook, it doesn't rise much or expand just browns and hardens like any living thing meant to decay. Tried to steal away recipes and helpful tips from the local women, other young and married wives who had three toddlers rolling around on the floor a baby in their arms and a bun in the oven. Procreating instead of creating any technology to get them out of the dark ages. Making more believers for deities who climax on prostrations.

The door opens, and he shuffles in slowly, his head hanging down and his foot almost catching underneath him. He's sullen with a day of work, his forehead shiny with sweat, and soot smattered all over his sleeves, hands, and face. In the last month she's taken a swing at making supper, running the household, making sure everything is clean and in place after she snoops through his personals trying to find anything, a book, an artifact, a testament, that can link her back to the old galaxy, to Daniel and SG-1 who need to know of the impending invasion headed their way. If only she hadn't been smart enough to destroy the only portal to the milky way.

"Hello Darling," she greets brightly, the firelight playing off her face and warming her hands. Their version of winter is upon them and if Tomin's stories are correct, ice balls will shoot from the sky and take out at least one villager, she's taken to keeping in the house, despite how mad it makes her to be caged, no matter the size of the cage.

"Good evening," he greets platonically. He removes his shoes at the door, but his left shoe, his lame shoe, catches in the modest straw carpet.

She leaves watching the bread burn to tend to him. "Tomin, what's happened."

"Nothing." He pulls a grin across his face, masquerades the day's heaviness away as she helps him untie his boot. "It was a glorious day, I did much to help the town by creating weapons for our soldiers and shoes for our horses."

"Tomin." Directs him to a chair where he plops down while she tries to straighten the hardened misplaced muscles in his foot and ankle. "You shouldn't lie to your wife."

"I do not want to tell you because it's a sin."

"Oh, well now this is getting interesting."

"Envy is not viewed by the Ori with positivity."

"A lot less interesting now."

"I simply wish to be able bodied, to defend my religion, my town, my wife." His sooty hand caresses at her cheek and she tries not to find solace in gesture.

Her hands touch his knees as she rises to sit on the arm of the chair. "Tomin without you aiding in creating the materials you do this town would be at a standstill. How would anyone defend themselves without your swords. How would transportation and trade occur to other villages without your horse shoes."

He leans his head to the back of the chair, grinning a bit slyly. "Now you are being prideful."

"Well Darling, everything is a sin if you look hard enough." Her hand smooths his thick hair away from his face as he starts to relax under her touch. She'll never admit to it, but part of her is proud that he relaxes with her, that she is able to see his strife and appreciate his value, that she can convince him to lower his expectations.

"I will never know what I did to deserve a wife as kind and beautiful as you." His hand is heavy at her hip fixing her apron and playing with the fabric. "If I live a thousand years I can never repay you for what you have done for me."

"Normally, I would argue that fact with you." After all he did save her from certain death and injury out in the wilderness. Treated her kindly and was never once lecherous. Purchased her all her clothing, her food, kept her warm and safe, particularly from the weasel-eyed tavern owner who watches their every move with what she thinks is a dangerous envy. He never expects anything of her, not because he thinks lowly of her, but because he's happy to do it for her or himself.

Her hand slides down his cheek to his chin, then shoulder and finally plays with his fingers. "But I believe I've got you trumped for at least the next eighteen years."

"I do not understand." A hard press on her thigh as he pushes his tired body back into a sitting position from his casual recline. Her tone has made him anxious, he hasn't learned how to tell her playful tone from her worried tone. To be far, they are both rather squeaky and shrill at times.

Wraps her fingers around his wrist and drags his hand, planting it on her stomach and watching his face evolve from a squished one of misunderstanding and concern to animating in complete zeal, brightening and stretching;

"You—You are with child?" Hasn't moved his hand, but his other arm circles around her back ensuring that she doesn't topple from the chair arm.

"Yes." Grins at him and blinks away the tears in her eyes at his shout of celebration.

"You are sure?"

She nods to reassure him, and his expression only grows. "A girl knows these things."

His shout echoes through their house again and his fingers rub her stomach like a genie might pop out. The strokes calm and full of love, of hope for her blackhole fetus. "I will never be able to repay you."

"Tomin—"

The weight of his head settles into her lap as he presses an ear to her stomach listening, perhaps for the ocean, and he whispers a particular passage from the Book of Ori. He holds her to him, the hand on her back pressing her closer and he sighs against her. "You have made me the happiest man in the galaxy, how can I begin to repay you?"

Sounds of a scuffle drifts in from their open window, the thwacks and thunks of some poor man being beaten for cheating Seevus out of money. Her stomach feels hollow, on alert for danger, and she knows the man is trouble.

"Protect us, Tomin." Fingers drift down the back of his neck gently lapping at his skin. He yanks his head away from her, staring up into her eyes to gauge her seriousness despite her voice being barely above a raspy whisper. "Keep us safe."

"Always and forever." He kisses the material bunched over her stomach, then rises and plants a chaste, but meaningful peck on her lips. With intensity in his eyes she hasn't viewed before he adds, "I promise you."


	3. Purple Flowers

Two Blue Lines

Chapter 3

Purple Flowers

3.

It is just reality. That's all it is.

"I cannot believe you're doing this." He trails her around the lab and she's unsure if it's because he's convinced he can convince her to stay with blunt criticisms or because he wants to ensure what she's taking doesn't belong to him. She doesn't own many things, lives a rather minimalist lifestyle from years of long conning and being on the run, guarantee everything can fit into a single bag, everything of importance tucked in tightly against her body while running into stolen cargo ships, running from angry lovers and husbands entangled in her web of untruths.

Perhaps she can never truly change after not trusting and then trusting, perhaps it just became a moral shock that jolted her constitution until she finally cracked and agreed it had to be better somewhere else. The want of something else. The need to be and be with someone else. Her room is already packed, and she's tossed the dish and bonbons from her desk into the smaller of her two bags, something to eat on the ride there in case she gets peckish and she will get peckish.

"You took this job and you didn't tell anyone, didn't okay it with Mitchell or General Landry." He's not red-faced yet but it's only a matter of moments because his stuttering, his verbal trip ups, lead him to become self-conscious and less censored. His irritation, his rage boils up and eventually he just starts shouting at her, if this were a true relationship, if their night together, the one he refuses to validify, had blossomed into a love affair it would be beyond dysfunctional.

"You just bided your time until the transfer date crept up and then said your goodbyes to everyone." Yanks her black knitted sweater from the back of her swivel chair and slides between the chair and the wall to open the top of the filing cabinet to retrieve the rest of the bonbons, shoves a handful in her mouth because the yelling woke up his child, no her child, and it needs to feed on something other than his negativity.

"Told everyone but me, by the way." Bursts by him, his arms elongated in his broad-chested offense, her gall to keep him in the dark, about more than one thing. "I had to learn it from Mitchell as he poked at his fourth cup of Jello in the cafeteria. Sam keeps rubbing her eyes on her sweater and she's starting to get an allergic reaction from the wool and Teal'c won't leave his room, he won't let anyone into his room. Teal'c."

Stops suddenly and feels his body pile behind her. She stoops over at a corner desk to retrieve her fuzzy slippers that she left for the nights when she can't sleep, when family and friends and foes all blend together in her memory, when her second baby was plucked away by the Ori, when her first baby—What about the third?

The third time's the charm, Sam would say.

"Are you even listening to me? I'm trying to stop you from making a huge mistake. Why are you even going there anyway? Is this because of—"

It deserves more, the first time, the first two times, every time it was an accident, they were accidental, but she became passive, not hoping to be a mother but accepting the motherhood thrust upon her. Not wishing to be pregnant but too sympathetic, and late, to terminate the pregnancies. She has been pregnant but never a mother and it's her own fault. Not this time. Done self-sacrificing for people, men, a man, who reads so many books that he can't find the subtext in reality.

It was never a fairy-tale.

"If you're upset about what happened after the gala we can sit down and have an adult conversation about it. Running away to Atlantis is definitely not the answer."

There's a small potted purple flower on his filing cabinet, the one filled with actual files and not candy that she's going to hoover before she gets aboard the _Hammond_ , or alcohol that she's expertly infiltrated into the dry society of Cheyenne Mountain, alcohol she can't even partake in anymore and she harbors even more distaste for him.

"Will you water the plant?" It's the first time she's directly addressed him since he burst through the doors in full monologue mode getting in her way and attempting to talk her down with the meanest words she's ever heard.

"Vala, just stop for a second."

"Who am I kidding, you never water the plant. I always do, you'll just leave it in the corner to dehydrate and die." Plucks up the little purple flower and delicately sets it into her larger bag, ensconces it between sweaters and jeans, nice and comfy. Staring directly into his eyes, halfway between slit with indignation and wide with shock, she states, "you've lost custody of the plant."

"Vala, stop." When she marches by him, his arm catches her, whirling her around and she imagines the little baby like a marble rolling inside of her, dizzy and scared and it infuriates her further.

Wrenches her arm away from him with such ferocity he holds his hands up in defense and takes a jolting step back. "You do not get to touch me."

"I just want to talk to you." The cadence of his voice softens from all out reprimand to a shifty, helpful tone, one of concern she's heard from him only a handful of times, usually he just uses the concerned reprimand for all his conversations with her.

Her teeth compress, and she points an accusatory finger towards him, inches away from his chest. "I'm done talking with you."

"So, you are mad at me then?"

"Believe me when I say this has absolutely nothing to do with you." Drifts back to her desk lodged in a darkened corner and jiggles the mouse until the screen activates.

"What are you doing?"

"Deleting my files."

"You don't know—"

Fingers fly flawlessly over the keyboard, and she listens to the tune of the clacking, the screen turns black and the machine resets to it's original setting. He remains stationary behind her, more dumbfounded than ritualistically upset. She swoops by him one final time, and he's learned not to lash out at her through possessive grabs.

"You're really going?"

"Yes." Undoes her pigtails and kneads her fingers through her hair pressing softly on her part, irritated from three years of separation, of living two lives, of trying to fit in and denying who she was, of barely fitting in and denying who she is, of needing to be more concrete in who she is, be stronger for someone else. Gathers her hair up into one ponytail and pulls out the three-diamond clip that usually adorns the side of her hair, Jacek gave it to her and where is he now? She doesn't need to impress anyone anymore and tosses it to her desk, white and spotless with no remains of her to be sighted.

"Then can you at least tell me why?" He dares to take a step forward but the glare she sends him kills his next movement, plants him firmly in place, barely sure he's allowed to look at her while he speaks. "If you're transferring to Atlantis and it's because you truly wanted the position, then I'll be happy for you Vala. But if you're doing this because of something I did, don't you think I deserve an answer why?"

In a voice completely devoid of emotion she answers, "no."

Expects him to goad that it is because of him, to swell with pride because he knows he still has the ability to affect her, albeit, negatively, but he doesn't. No cocky grin spreads on his face, no puffed out chest ripe for the battering. Instead his voice, smaller, not completely a whisper but just something shy of a plea. "If you're leaving anyway, then why can't I know."

Bunches her lips praying they'll dam the expletives she wants to vent into the air, and bobs her head replaying his request in her mind, and if the tables were turned would he allow her this miniscule consolation? But the answer becomes voided because despite all her cajoling, her prodding and her jokes, she still treats him as a person, respects him as an individual and trusted him until very recently.

But being angry and being right are not the most important things in the world, she knew this long before meeting Daniel, before meeting the rest of the team, or Tomin or her third, second, and first husbands. Isn't concerned with winning the fight or coming off as more compassionate for educating him on the feelings he chose so long to ignore, but does it for their child, attempts to forge a mutual respect when she wants to punch the glasses off his face. "Perhaps if you're ever struck by a sense of ennui while you're puttering around your big, empty office alone, you could address yourself with the words you use to address me. Then maybe the next time a 'friend' suddenly deserts you, you'll have a better intel as to why."

Over the loudspeaker in the room, Walter announces her name and adds that the _Hammond_ is waiting for her to ring up. Adjusts the larger bag around her chest, between breasts that are tender for a third time and it's almost tiring. Lugs up the smaller bag on the opposite shoulder holding it like a purse. In his eyes, in this final shared moment between them, she sees regret, trepidation, and pure panic.

At the door his voice drifts towards her, his body, his face still turned towards her desk voided of her save for a hair bauble, knowing her room is generic and empty of her presence, knowing in less than five minutes this complex will have no physical recollection of her. She's sure his words want to be more offended, be harsher around the edges up they hit her like soap bubbles. "What's gotten into you?"

And her patience runs out because she gets to be a new her on Atlantis, gets to have new friends with new interactions who respect her and won't double guess her parenting techniques, or judge her for a night of fairy-tale sex and when she tells their child of this moment in years to come she won't be proud of herself, but dammit, she's proud of herself now. "You got into me Daniel, six weeks ago. We had sex and you came inside me, and in our throes of passion we forgot protection and now I'm pregnant. That's what's gotten into me."


End file.
